1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a flexible base material and a flexible electronic device, and in particular, to a flexible base material and a flexible electronic device with excellent moisture-barrier/gas-barrier and anti-curving performances.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, flexible electronic devices have been developed. For example, an organic light emitting diode device (OLED) has the advantages of being self-luminous, light weight, and thin and having low power consumption. Compared with the conventional fluorescent lamp having a linear luminous body and the light emitting diode device (LED) having a spot-shaped luminous body, an OLED has a planar luminous body, and has replaced the fluorescent lamp. Also, laminating materials of OLEDs are flexible organic materials with the advantages of having high contrast, fast response time and a wide viewing-angle. The flexible OLED display, which is fabricated by forming OLEDs and organic thin film transistors for driving the OLEDs on a plastic substrate, has become the choice of preference for replacing the conventional rigid display. The flexible OLED display generally uses a plastic substrate as a substrate. However, the plastic substrate has poor moisture-barrier/gas-barrier performance. Also, organic light emitting polymer layers and high activity electrode materials in the flexible OLED display are very sensitive to moisture and oxygen. When moisture and oxygen in the atmosphere penetrate into the plastic substrate, the luminance of the OLED is reduced, and the driving voltage is increased, such that a dark spot problem and short circuit problem may occur, thereby decreasing the reliability and life span of the flexible OLED display. Therefore, developments in packaging technology are very important to the technology of the flexible OLED display.
The conventional moisture-barrier/gas-barrier technology uses an organic-inorganic alternating multilayer as a barrier layer formed on the flexible substrate by a sputtering or plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method to achieve the moisture-barrier/gas-barrier performance. However, the conventional barrier layer requires laminating at least three pairs of the organic-inorganic alternating multilayer to achieve the moisture-barrier/gas-barrier function. Also, the conventional organic-inorganic alternating multilayer is formed by alternate delivery and sputtering processes in different vacuum chambers. Thus, the fabrication cost and process time are increased. Further, after the barrier layer is sputtered on the flexible substrate, the internal stress in the barrier layer affects the flexible substrate, resulting in the bending or deformation of the substrate, thus, negatively affecting the moisture-barrier/gas-barrier performance of the conventional barrier layer.